You also have to consider representation – both over and under – representation.

To take an elite college like Harvard for example, the ethnic makeup of Harvard's undergrad population is as follows: Black 8%, Hispanic 8%, White 48%, Asian 18%. The ethnic makeup of the US population consists of Black 13%, Hispanic 15%, White 74%, Asian 4.5%.

So Asians are overrepresented at Harvard, while the other groups are underrepresented. And a similar pattern is found at other elite colleges.

Furthermore, if you break down the White population at Harvard, you'll find that Jews are around 30%[pdf] of the Harvard undergrad population, which means that non-Jewish White Christians are about 18% of the Harvard undergrad population. Jews are around 3% of the US population, whereas non-Jewish White Christians are about 70% of the US population. And again this pattern seems to hold at other elite colleges.

So as far as representation is concerned, broadly speaking Asians are overrepresented while all other groups are underrepresented at elite colleges. To be precise, Asians and Jews are quite dramatically overrepresented, while the other groups are underrepresented, with non-Jewish White Christians most underrepresented out of all.

These patterns generally hold for the most prestigious, elite colleges. The less elite, less prestigious the university, the less likely you will see such patterns.

But, it's an intriguing issue. I just went on a quick search for some articles to try to find out how this may impact college enrollment in California.

From (what appears to be) a very conservative leaning source…

“With the enactment of California's Proposition 209 in 1996, outlawing racial discrimination in college admissions, Asian enrollment at UC campuses has skyrocketed. UC Berkeley student body is 42 percent Asian students; UC Irvine 55 percent; UC Riverside 43 percent; and UCLA 38 percent. Asian student enrollment on all nine UC campuses is over 40 percent. That's in a state where the Asian population is about 13 percent.”

The full article is here…

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5580

Just a random guess… but assuming that there is no racial discrimination in the admissions process… IF it's also 3 times harder for Asians to get accepted into college in California…

My first instict is to believe that it would be primarily related to athletics (actually the money involved in athletics)… Only because I BELIEVE college athletics are a relatively large revenue source for most colleges (though I have no information to back that up).

I'd wonder how those enrollment numbers compare to the number of Asians involved in “big money” college sports… Football, baseball, basketball and such.

OR, it may be interesting to see the total of Asian female admissions versus white female admissions (since I don't believe revenue is particularly large for women's athletic programs).